02127cam a22002897 4500001000700000003000500007005001700012008004100029100002300070245011800093260006600211490004200277500001500319520083900334530006101173538007201234538003601306690008201342690008201424690009701506700002001603700002001623710004201643830007701685856003801762856003701800w15139NBER20161209093354.0161209s2009 mau||||fs|||| 000 0 eng d1 aCarlin, Bruce Ian.10aWhen Does Libertarian Paternalism Work?h[electronic resource] /cBruce Ian Carlin, Simon Gervais, Gustavo Manso. aCambridge, Mass.bNational Bureau of Economic Researchc2009.1 aNBER working paper seriesvno. w15139 aJuly 2009.3 aWe develop a theoretical model to study the effects of libertarian paternalism on knowledge acquisition and social learning. Individuals in our model are permitted to appreciate and use the information content in the default options set by the government. We show that in some settings libertarian paternalism may decrease welfare because default options slow information aggregation in the market. We also analyze what happens when the government acquires imprecise information about individuals, and characterize its incentives to avoid full disclosure of its information to the market, even when it has perfect information. Finally, we consider a market in which individuals can sell their information to others and show that the presence of default options causes the quality of advice to decrease, which may lower social welfare. aHardcopy version available to institutional subscribers. aSystem requirements: Adobe [Acrobat] Reader required for PDF files. aMode of access: World Wide Web. 7aG18 - Government Policy and Regulation2Journal of Economic Literature class. 7aG38 - Government Policy and Regulation2Journal of Economic Literature class. 7aH11 - Structure, Scope, and Performance of Government2Journal of Economic Literature class.1 aGervais, Simon.1 aManso, Gustavo.2 aNational Bureau of Economic Research. 0aWorking Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research)vno. w15139.4 uhttp://www.nber.org/papers/w1513941uhttp://dx.doi.org/10.3386/w15139